Scouring utensil



Mar ch 26, 1935. A, HOMQN 1,995,809

SCOURING UTENSIL Qriginal Fi led Dec. 2, 1932 IN VEN TOR.

ALBERT HoMo/v BY y A TTORNEYS.

Patented Mar. 26, 1935 PATENT OFFICE SCOURING UTENSIL Albert Homon, Chicopee, Mass,

Springfield Wire & Tinsel 00.,

assignor to West Springfield, Mass, a corporation of Massachusetts Original application December 2, 1932, Serial No.

645,360. Divided and this application April 28, 1934, Serial No. 722,903

Claims.

This invention relates to an improved scouring utensil, and is a division of my method application Serial No. 645,360, filed December 2, 1932. It has been common practice to bunch metallic strands made of flattened and coiled filaments and use the bunch for a scouring utensil. It is usually made of a size to fit the users hand. Various improvements have been made in the formation of the bunch. For example, the patent to Mayer No. 1,713,975, and the patent to Bradford No. 1,864,579 show the plan of winding a skein of the strand material and then tying the skein in different ways to get different formations of the utensil.

When the utensil is made in skein formation, the turns of the skein give definite predetermined loops to the strand. While it is usual for such loops to become more or less tangled one with another, they do nevertheless characterize the body formation of the bunch and they can be pulled apart rather easily. This results in an easier separation of one portion of the bunch from the other portions than is desirable, particularly when the bunch is pulled at an angle to the length of the skein. That is to say, the bunched material does not hang together in as uniform a manner as is desirable. If it is stretched in one direction (along the length of the loops), its strands will crowd together. But when stretched in a direction at right angles, the strands will separate. This makes the skein bunch act different! ly according to the direction of strain. The skein winding does not give as uniform resistance under strain as I have found desirable in the utensil.

The problem of this invention is to so form the metallic strand or composite strand (of metal and textile filaments) that the resulting utensil will be made up so as to give a more uniform resistance throughout its body portion than prior art utensils of the same general character. What is desired is to have the utensil of substantially equal softness throughout its body portion, to have it no easier to pull out in one direction than another, but equally easy in all directions, and to have it so that it will return to its general form equally well from whatever direction it out in use.

I solve this problem by winding the strandmar.

terial under substantially uniform tension (light enough to give rather loose formation), but gen erally as balls of cord or yarn are formed, except that my ball winding is not such as will give a solid ball in the ultimate product. The direction of winding such a ball formation constantly changes or changes sufficiently so that the loops of the winding are made to cross one another either singly or in groups and the whole mass is cross grained, but not woven, to give it selfsupporting strength against strain in any direction.

is pulled to give the body of the cleaning utensil a uniform cross-grained character to hang together, as in my specific forms.

To illustrate my invention in its preferred form reference is had to the accompanying drawing, in which- Fig. 1 is a diagrammatic plan View indicating the core and a preferred method of ball Winding, showing the beginning courses of the cleaning material strand to be wound;

Fig. 2 is a side view indicating an arbor support for a winding core disk and in dash line the outline of the body of material that may be ball wound on the core;

Fig. 3 is a view of a portion of the scouring material in coiled metallic filament form, usually flat in the cross-section of the wire, which is the kind of helically coiled strand that is wound in loops to make the utensil. The scale is enlarged;

Fig. 4. is a view like Fig. 3 but of two coils of strand material with their coils interlocked as a variation of the kind of strand that may be wound to make the utensil; and Fig. 5 is a view of the kind of ball-like utensil such as may be made up to embody my invention.

I prefer to use a curled wire filament a. of fiattened cross-section such as shown in Fig. 3. Thiskind of wire is commonly curled by drawing it over a straight edge under tension and releasing the tension. The metal then has an inherent tendency to coiled spring form and will retain such form unless it is held under sufiicient ten-, sion to have it straightened out. The drawing of it is conventional and on an enlarged scale.

With this coiled wire as the winding material, I-

may usefor purposes of simple illustration (in a hand method a core disk I) which may be of cardboard in circular disk-form with an arbor c for support) the following procedure: I wind coiled wire a as illustrated in Fig. 1 over and under disk b. The starting courses of the winding are shown in Fig. 1. Each course is along a diameter of the disk I), the arbor 0 being of relatively negligible size. Course 1 on top proceeds in the direction of the arrows, turns into course 2 under'the disk 3 on 'top, and then courses 4, 5, 6, 7, etc. As usual in ball winding, the courses each make an angle with the previous and succeeding courses so as to spread over the disk and cover it. Or I may wind two or more coiled wires at a time (see on along the lines indicated until the desired weight of material is built up to the desired size on disk D. One form is shown by the door knob shape indicated by the outline of Fig. 2. Of course the winding can be kept up if a larger ball is desired or one more nearly round in contour than that shown in Fig. 2-for example, such as shown in Fig. 5. The idea is to wind a shape convenient for the hand utensil purpose. It may be round or knob-shaped. The coiled wire filament is so small and its weight so little per unit length that the desired result can be attained to a substantial degree if successive or adjacent layers are wound in the mass with the angle changed sufficiently from layer to layer. The chief thing in this feature of the invention is to change the winding angle often enough to make the grain (the direction of the loops) cross throughout the mass to get a uniform cross grained lay of the loops for my purpose.

When the winding is finished to a form as illustrated in Fig. 2 or 5, the arbor c is drawn out, the cardboard core may be collapsed, the body material stretched apart, and the core removed either as a whole or in torn parts. What is left is the utensil embodying the characteristics of my invention.

In winding the utensil from a springy, coiled strand a, it is desirable to use a sufiicient winding tension to give the adjacent portions of the strands a distinct tendency to tangle and interlock coils. This interlocking happens best when the mass of the utensil is put under tension when winding to separate (but not straighten out) the coils and springs together when the winding tension is released upon collapsing the core. To further this action I may use a composite strand as illustrated in Fig. 4, made up of two oppositely coiled strands a and (2' arranged along the same axis, or I may use two coils turned in the same direction. The latter may be made by drawing two filaments instead of one under tension over the straight edge in a coiling machine (such as shown in the Wolle Patent No. 1,689,093, October 23, 1928) and carrying them side by side or one over the other through the same steps as the single filament of Fig. 3. But the winding into the utensil mass is done after the coiling tension is released. The winding tension is much less than the coiling tension necessary to operate a machine like Wolles.

I do not desire to limit myself to the particular kind of elastically arranged filamentary material of coiled form such as I have shown. It is the kind preferred at present, but I am disclosing my invention for use with any of the many known specific forms of scouring metallic strands whether with or without a core and whether the core is a coiled metal filament to give elasticity to the strand or is straight and served with a coiled filament or whether both core and covering or core carried strand thereon are coiled. But I preferably use a helically coiled strand such as shown in Fig. 3 or 4, rather than one with a core in it. One important point is that the scouring strand be of suflicient springy material to give the desired action in the utensil formed as I have described.

The winding may be done on known ball winding machines instead of by hand as I have indicated.

A characteristic of the utensil such as shown in Fig. 5 is that there are no hard spots in it; that is, no substantially concentrated material to make appreciable lumps. It is soft and springy throughout and when pulled apart, as it needs to be to fluii it up for use and to rinse it like a sponge, the resistance is practically the same in all directions of pull. The precise, orderly ball wind of the strand in originally making the utensil is lost in a tangled mass when the core is removed and the Winding tension is released by the collapse of the material. But due to the ball wind the strand turns have been crossed and recrossed with one another, so as to interlock in a fundamentally cross-grained structure which will retain its fundamental form, even under very ward usage. That is to say, the direction of the loops or turns of the winding are not even generally uniform or in the same direction as in skein winding, but are changed enough as in ball winding that the article has more the character- 'stics of woven or knitted utensils than of a wound structure in the sense that the parts hang together better.

I aware that bunches of helically coiled flattened tinsel wire for securing purposes have been bunched together by merely tangling it in mass and by looping it in a skein. One of the difiiculties in these prior art utensils is that in use the mass soon loses the form in which it was originally made and sold. It is customary to work the mass of coils by hand stretching and releasing to condition or fiuii it up. However, I know from experience that the prior art bunches soon deteriorate into a sodden mass and cannot be fluifed up as desired. My new product which is sufliciently cross-grain d made has a much longer life. There is a uniformity in its tangled structure which resists deterioration of form, no matter in what direction it is pulled out and released.

Having described my improvement, what I claim is:

1. An all-metal cleaning utensil made of fiattened tinsel wire formed into closely spaced and small helical coils, said wire being wound into a hand-sized bunch with loops of the wire having a substantially conmon center and crossing and recrossing each other in all directions as in a ball wind and with said helical coils interlocked in a uniformly tangled elastic mass adapted to resist with substantially equal force a pull on the mass in any direction.

2. An all-metal cleaning utensil of the kind described comprising a uniform ball Wound mass of tinsel wire strand material that is helically coiled along its length and with the coils interlocked in a highly elastic yielding condition whereby the wound form may resist permanent distortion of the mass in every direction with substantially equal elastic force.

3. A cleaning utensil comprising layers of strand loops having a common center, with the loops of each layer angularly related to each other.

4. A cleaning utensil comprising layers of fiattened and helically coiled tinsel. wire strand loops having a common center, with. the loops and coils of each layer angularly related and tangled to adjacent loops and coils.

5. A cleaning utensil comprising a form retaining bunch of tangled coils of flattened wire in loosely wound strands, said strands being looped about a common center in successive layers with a sufficient change in the angular relation of the loops in each layer to make up a bunch of substantially equal strength in all directions.

ALBERT HOMON,

n u U 

